Mr. Holland'S Opus

Mr. Holland's Opus is about a man named Glenn Holland who is a white male music teacher, who began teaching music at John F. Kennedy High School, around the age of late 20's to early 30's. Mr. Holland began teaching because he felt that he could earn some money to support him and his wife, while he was reaching his goal of becoming a composer. In the beginning of his teaching career, Mr. Holland felt that teaching was all about arriving to school on time and giving lectures and test to his students, because they are there to learn. Mr. Holland did have the students under control in his classroom; they were always in their seats even though they were bored out of their mind. Mr. Holland would criticize students when they gave the wrong answers on his test, by humiliating them in front of the class. According to Kevin Ryan, and James Cooper, Mr. Holland would not have been seen as an effective teacher since he wasn't there for the students. Mr. Holland was mainly focused on himself, and reaching his goal of becoming a composer. However, Mr. Holland soon began to realize that this type of teaching was not at all an effect way of teaching students about music. In our textbook they state that the most important part of teaching is to reflect on your own teaching styles, and this is what Mr. Holland did since he notices his students were not learning music. Mr. Holland goal to his students was he wanted them to learn that "learning music is supposed to be fun, not just notes on the page." Now that Mr. Holland realized that he wasn't getting his point across to his students about music, he wanted to find another way. Mr. Holland began by making the music come to life, he showed the students how the music they enjoyed listening today came from the great musicians in history. Before Mr. Holland changed his view of teaching music, the students were extremely bored during his music class. However, this all changed once they realized how interesting music was coming to be. Students were starting to become more interested and were beginning to learn about how to play instruments, however some of the students that were thrilled about learning music could not play music very well. Two of Mr. Holland's students

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